Roadster Cleans - Need Help

[joe187]

Hey Everybody

My Roadster is a fantastic overdriven amp, but I cannot get it to sound good on cleans no matter what I do. There is always some level of breakup or distortion.

I play in a cover band. I need to get useable cleans out of this amp, or I gotta sell it. I bought it because it supposedly had great cleans for a Mesa. I don't expect Fender or Roland cleans, but I do expect something that doesn't break up.

THe only change I have made to the amp is to swap out the tubes for JJ's. I put their KT 77 set in. My understanding was that was supposed to clean up the tone, not muddy it up.

Would you post your clean settings for me if you have what you think are "good" cleans with a Roadster? Does anybody out there have a recording of the Roadster with good cleans? I really appreciate the help

Joe

 

[155]

not sure the kt77 were the way to go , but where is your gain? I can get of clean headroom with no break up, using 6l6's though? fat setting, gain 10-11

 

[fishyfishfish]

You will get a better "Clean sound" with 6L6's IMO. Although I don't own a Roadster, I do have a Dual, and I found that if you set the Volume on the clean channel to what you need, then set the volumes of the gain channels to match the volume of the clean channel. I can get a pretty good clean sound, should be even better on the Roadster.

 

[cjae]

I have a roadster with KT77s. I get great cleans with no break up even with my EMGs. Make sure to set it at 100 watts and diodes. Also, make sure your preamp tubes are fine. When i switched to KT77s I didn't find the clean channel to break up more. my settings are gain about 10 o'clock and everything around 12 with presence around 11o'clock.

Hope it works,

 

[jdurso]

what we consider great cleans all depends on personal taste. IMO the KT77s are just ok for cleans but not great. The 6l6s will definitely get you the cleaner clean, but it all depends on the settings and your pups.

what i do to get super clean cleans on my roadster is set channel 1 to clean, 100 watts, diodes, bass at 12, mids at 11, treble at 12:30, presence at 1, gain at 10, volume at 10. I also always have the solo engaged for channel 1 for two reasons.... 1) it helps me balance the clean volume with the dirty volume and 2) it adds a little bit of brightness (or so it seems to my ears).

now the amp setup is only half the trick in my book. the other 50% is your guitar... the pups, using your volume and tone controls and picking sensitivity. I used to be a very one dimensional picker and always needed a super clean amp to get really super clean cleans (jazz chorus was perfect for me at the time). Since then i've learned a lot about pick sensitiviy and with a good guitar the tone and volume controls can be the key to getting the best cleans.

 

[joe187]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the info. I went back and looked up what I bought from JJ's Eurotubes when I bought the amp and I did put in a Hi Gain set of pre-amp tubes along with the KT77's. I think I should maybe put something closer to the original tube set into the amp and see what it does to the cleans.

Let me ask one more question along those lines - if you have done anything to the tubes AND you think your cleans stayeed the same or, more importantly got better, would you let me know what your full set of tubes is? If I am buying tubes then I should buy the best set for the overall performance of the amp.

I really appreciate the opinons, feedback, and great direction.

Thanks

Joe

 

[domct203]

I've been down the Eurotubes route, and the Doug's Tubes cocktail.

IMO using all JJ's made the amp muddy, sterile and lifeless, clean or dirty.

Doug's standard cocktail was an improvement, but my cleans were boomy and hollow, and in high gain I could not tame the Recto fizz.

With alot of help from this board, this is what I've been running for the last 4-5 months. I could not be happier.

V1 – RFT 12AX7 (NOS)
V2 – Mullard 12AX7 (Vintage)
V3 – GE 12AX7 17mm Longplate (Vintage)
V4 – Mullard CV2024 (NOS)
V5 – Mesa 12AX7 Russian 2
V6 – Sovtek 12AX7LPS
Power Tubes - SED =C= SV6L6GC

This setup improved all aspects of the amp, cleans, mid-gain, and high gain tones.

Throwing a set of Bill Lawrence L-500's in my Les Paul was the icing on the cake.

Dom

 

[aarona]

Had similar issues in an Ace. Tamed it quite a bit with the diode/fat setting. The gain/master controls seem to be very forgiving, but I had to do it just right so as not to lose the tone.

 

[joe187]

I've been down the Eurotubes route, and the Doug's Tubes cocktail.


With alot of help from this board, this is what I've been running for the last 4-5 months. I could not be happier.

V1 – RFT 12AX7 (NOS)
V2 – Mullard 12AX7 (Vintage)
V3 – GE 12AX7 17mm Longplate (Vintage)
V4 – Mullard CV2024 (NOS)
V5 – Mesa 12AX7 Russian 2
V6 – Sovtek 12AX7LPS
Power Tubes - SED =C= SV6L6GC

This setup improved all aspects of the amp, cleans, mid-gain, and high gain tones.

Throwing a set of Bill Lawrence L-500's in my Les Paul was the icing on the cake.

Dom

hey Dom - this is perfect - exactly what I was hoping for. Where did you get these tubes? You are happy with your cleans using this setup?

I appreciate the feedback!

Joe

 

[scoden]

I do agree that the Roadster will break up quickly for cleans if not set right...esp with humbuckers.

I never need real high headroom for cleans ...but I use Fat clean mode 100 watts/ diodes with 6L6s with Master close to 230 300...and channel volume and gain near 1030. I aslo roll off volume / or split humbuckers and its a nice full clean sound for my needs. Watch the bass in fat mode..over 1030 gets muddy for chords.

The way I set it , it does balance with my gain channels.....but if thats not an issue you could drop the gain more and push the master higher for even more headroom as well as kick in solo boost for a very loud clean signal.

Lots of ways to skin the cat with these amps..which is whats so great about them!!

Scott

 

[domct203]

joe187,

I absolutly love the cleans in my Roadster with this setup, but as others have stated, amp settings, guitar/p'up combinations, and playing style play a big role as well. I use the solo boost to help bring the clean levels up to balance with the lead channels and have great cleans with no breakup ( guitar volume back to 7-8 ) when playing at reasonable gig levels.

The RFT is a Tesla labled tube I got from KCA NOS tubes http://kcanostubes.com/products/14/NOS-RFT-12AX7-ECC83.htm
It was a little pricey but I wanted a good NOS tube for the V1 slot.

Both Mullards (12AX7 & CV2024) and the GE Longplate are from E-Bay. If you shop wisely you can find some good deals. The Mesa Russian-2 is one of the Roadster's stock tubes, and the Sovtek LPS and SED =C='s are from Doug's Tubes.

I also tried a Vintage RCA 12AX7 in V1 with good results, but I liked the RFT for it's high-mid and treble response. The GE Longplate in V3 really makes the bottom end to low-mids nice and full. IMO the Mullard CV2024 (aka 12AT7) in V4 warmed up the reverb nicely. I had a second Mullard CV2024 in the PI ( V6 ) but felt it took to much 'edge' off my lead tones. Both the Sovtek LPS and Mullard CV2024 in the PI gave up great dynamics with clean settings.

Dom

 

[madjack45]

Hey guys,
I'm new to the boards, but I've recently purchased a Roadster combo and I'm having trouble with the cleans. Thanks to jdurso for some good advice dialing in some good clean tones. I think someone else mentioned that humbuckers can cause the cleans to break up faster. I could not agree with this more. I play a Gibson SG into the Roadster and I am not fond of the cleans yet. I've been able to get closer to my desired tone but I'm not in the "zone" yet. But with my Fender strat the cleans sound better to me. So maybe pickup choice is very essential to that clean tone. I had been scooping my mids a bit as a result of some advice from another Mesa owner, but I'll try these settings tonight and compare the 2 guitars as well. I'm hoping this will fix it so I don't have to mess with the tubes.

The rest of the amp is KILLER though! I'm glad I made the investment in switching to Mesa Boogie from Marshall!

 

[JW123]

I play Les Paul Classics with the t-500s super hot pickups. I roll off the tone to around 3-5 and the volume to 2-5 for my clean sounds, when I open up the volume it does tend to distort.

You can roll off the gain some on the clean channel. Treble and presence can add some breaku if you set them aggresively.

I agree with the above set to 100 watt silicon diodes, I run my gainy channels at 50 watts. I also power up on spongy.

Ive had mine for a few monthes but Im still trying to get a handle on this amp myself. I dont think you can make it sound like a Fender Twin or a Roland JC 120, but you should be able to find a good compromise that will work.

 

[MrMarkIII]

Lower pre-amp gain, higher channel/master settings equal cleaner cleans.

 

[Bill11]

Hi Joe187,

I play an ESP Esquire with SD 59 pickups through my Roadster combo and instead of using the guitar controls to reduce the pickup drive/volume, I lowered each of the pickups about a 1/4 of an inch. This manually reduced the pickup drive and made it easy to dial in Lone Star type cleans on the Roadster.

As for tubes, its always user preference and relies on the ear of the beholder, but I just re-tubed my Roadster with all Mesa tubes including a quad of the lowest priced EL34 Mesa tubes, and the sound improvement, and the sound overall, is excellent.

 

[MrMason]

What kind of guitar/pups? As a general question, what amps have you played before? Cleans are VERY subjective, and the type of amp you play has a huge impact on the voicing of the cleans.

 

[madjack45]

lowering the gain and raising the master volume still didn't help me achieve super cleans. I was in the bold setting though. Will switching to the spongy setting help this? What about 100W vs. 50W or recto vs. diode? I know I can't get Fender cleans but i want to get as uncolored as possible. THanks in advance for any advice.